SocketChannel and The GC

Question

I wrote a socks proxy using java.nio.channels.SocketChannel api. I noticed that the number of os handles the program opened over time was approaching tens of thousands and increasing while I have the program running. I wrote a simple code to test if the SocketChannel was creating these handles and yes it was
import java.nio.channels.SocketChannel;
import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
public class JTest {
     static public void main(String args[]) {
          while(true) {
               try {
                    SocketChannel s = SocketChannel.open();
                    s.connect(new InetSocketAddress("sf.net",80));
                    System.out.println("connected");
                    Thread.sleep(100);
                    //s.close();
               catch(Exception e) { }
}just run that code with s.close() commented. Uncommenting the close method will solve the problem but I assumed the GC would have cleaned up the SocketChannel removing all open handles. My proxy was issuing a close on the socket channel assoicated socket and that was the main reason for the multiplying os Handles. Tested on Win Xp SP2 java 1.5.0_04-b05.

Answer 1

but I assumed the GC would have cleaned up the
SocketChannel removing all open handles. The gc is not magic and does not always clean sys resources for you.
You have no idea when the gc will run. whn you are finished with a
system resource, close/dispose it.Ever so true. I'd like to add that all the gc cares about is memory; When
an attempt to allocate more memory fails, only then the finalizers of the
collected objects are run for sure. If the native OS can handle that many
open resources (sockets etc.) without the application running out of
memory, the gc couldn't care less.
kind regards,
Jos